I've had Linux Mint for about 2 weeks now (I think).

What made me switch was that I kept getting nagged to upgrade and I finally caved in and I hated the OS once I switched. Yes it looks pretty and I understand the thinking behind it updating automatically (I'm thinking logically not Tinfoil angle but yes its a spyware OS). But the OS is a mess as in, it takes away a lot of the users freedom and goes into mobile phone territory and how those are setup. For example I installed Windows 10. First I deleted all the bloatware that came with it..... Well tried too. Apparently some stuff like Xbox Live can't be uninstalled or at least have there icons deleted or hidden. There might be a way but microsoft made it a hide and seek game with doing such an easy task. The stuff that I did get to delete, reappeared in the next update with more recommended crap! I see my menu and I click it and I see new..... When and what did I download? Again your installing programs I don't specifically want and re-adding things I have deleted in the past. I'm all up for making programs/features/OS more customer friendly and easier to navigate but that's it. Not to give you control on how I want my system to run. You have one job at that is to be an OS not my mom. Secondly and this is just in general what I saw with windows 8 was that they did the whole tile thing like it was my phone/xbox. Yes they were trying to make it simpler but they went too simple. It's a PC/Laptop not a phone/xbox there is a big difference. Maybe they were trying to capitalize on some sort of trend or customer mentality/intelligence but I hated it. With windows 10 they took that crap off and added back the start menu but they kept the recommended "apps" and general advertisement (again its a computer..... a big boy computer, not a phone/xbox) so it now looks like xbox live but without all the tiles......

Again I know when computers first came out to the public it was a niche thing.... It wasn't cheap you needed to read instructions, you needed to input commands and all that stuff. Then it evolved to mouse clicking and knowing some minor stuff but you had control what was going on in your system... It was/is your second home. And now it resembles a pacifier to me. I don't like that trend. I don't like how it went from programs to apps. From start menu to no menu, just click on a colorful tile because your an idiot and the entirety of your system are these tiles in front of you because.... Hey we're Microsoft and your too stupid to figure out how to work the old regular desktop mode that shows the true potential power of your PC/laptop. I do various shit on a laptop/PC, I read a book on a tablet, I make calls on a phone. I don't want those lines blurred. Yes, make it easy but as in giving me all the options in one place that has to do with whatever I'm doing like in linux, lets say I was to change the font or look of something I simple head to Preferences, I don't have to navigate 4 separate folders in 2 main folders to find what I'm looking for......

I got tired and I made the switch and yes I had some hiccups but it's very easy to install and it's not that difficult and if anything just make a post or two asking for help here.

NOT trying to convince you to upgrade.

That said, I'm curious why you resist this? I've upgraded to Windows 10 on both my computers (they had Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 respectively) and am quite happy with it. Much like you I use my computers primarily for gaming and have even seen a bit of an improvement since the upgrade. Nothing drastic, but about 10 FPS in something like Witcher 3.

Save that in a file you name (anything).reg, double-click it, and it will activate a policy which disables the running of the upgrade.

You mean similar to what LindowsOS tried to be?

just upgrade to windows 10. it's a good uograde (and I'm not a windows user, I use mac... I've just a virtual machine wiith windows).
if you don't want to upgrade and you don't want to search for the bad upgrade just wait one year when the upgrade will be not free anymore.

Also if you want to try linux without risk I suggest you to just use a virtual machine.
With a virtual machine you can install linux without leave windows, learn how to use it without fear (in the worst case you just recover a backup copy of the virtual machine), you can see with your eyes if you can or cannot use linux and you can see if wine can be a solution for your gaming problem. keep in mind that a virtual machine share performance with basic os, so while you virtual machine is active a modern game can have performance problem... that's why when you have learn how to use a linux on a virtual machine the best thing you can do is install it on a native partition... at this point you can dual boot (again without touch windows).
finally, if and when you're ready you can make linux your main os.
you can always stop using virtual machine or at dual boot with windows main os if you want.
best distro, ubuntu.... it's easy to use, with great support...There are too many distros of Linux, so it is best to go on best supported.

Or the third option which I use and which I consider the easiest: close those nagging screens which come maybe a few times per week (not even daily in my experience). EDIT: Ok you did mention it too, "put up with regular harassment".

To me, they are about as irritating as those nagging screens from Free Avira Antivirus, which also every now and then says I should really upgrade it to the paid version. The Win10 nagging screens have become a bit more irritating though, like yesterday it gave me two options:

1. Upgrade now.
2. Download Win10 installation files, and upgrade later.

Umm, how about the third option not to download anything and not to upgrade? Well, for that you apparently just had to close that nagging window with the X icon. It does seem MS is trying to trick people to upgrade, but I will keep resisting (I already have the registered Windows 10 Pro USB installation media with me, so I should be able to install that if and when I want to upgprade to Win10 even after the free upgrade option; and my future PCs will have Win10 by default anyway, preloaded).

I presume those Win10 nagging screens will go away when the free upgrade time window to Windows 10 has elapsed.
I personally still want to play those PC games I have that have issues on Windows 10, but not on my current Windows 7. So I won't upgrade.

(I have actually upgraded once already, in order to be registered as a legit Win10 Pro user on MS servers so I can upgrade later myself. But for now i downgraded back to Windows 7.)

Not a good option, if the idea is to check how well Linux plays games (also Windows games through Wine).

I get OldFatGuy's idea though, for me also pretty much the only reason to stay on Windows on my home PCs is gaming. At this point I don't see Linux as a fully viable option for that. For other uses, I think Linux Mint is enough (and for some cases even better, e.g. running gogrepo.py).

My work laptop is a different case, there I use Windows as many of our office tools depend on Windows applications. There are some though who use Linux on their office PCs here too, but I guess they have to find workarounds for many things they do...

Every Linux distro I tried is delivered on a bootable live-DVD anyway, so just booting from it is already an easy way to try it. Making a seperate partition for installing it whithout touching the other one is the next logical step if you like what you see.

Welcome to the future of Windows, please be prepared to part with all your data, and appear on every advertising list worldwide, you know you want to :o)

you seem old school like myself, so let me ask you this
did windows 3.1 which i used and probably you too, had autoupdates? no, and it worked right?
did windows 95 which i used and probably you too, had autoupdates? no, and it worked right?
did windows 98 which i used and probably you too, had autoupdates? no, and it worked right?
did windows 2000 which i used and probably you too, had autoupdates? no, and it worked right?
did windows xp which i used and probably you too, had autoupdates? yes, but i didn't used it and probably you didn't either, and it worked right?
has windows 7 which i use and probably you too, have autoupdates? yes, but I don't used it just like i've been doing since the 90s, and it works right?

simple answer, turn off auto-updates and do a weekly manual check and only install updates that have in the description "security", everything else just don't trust microsoft.
i know you don't like what I will say
i bet i've been using windows as long as you, but after 2020, i'm done and trust me, unless you don't mind being another microsoft slave, there is no alternative except linux, even if it sucks which it really does.
Nevertheless 2020 is online, cause I will use my windows xp and windows 7 machines offline until they break which i hope is before i'm dead and burried.

Same for me as well, on all my PCs.

I get the feeling that next time around Msoft won't even ask us for permission; 'here's Mega-Windows_Xbox 11 taking over your computer !'.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I can't do some AASCI art to make an arrow to point this out as the solution. :o)

I did it a while ago and that works pretty much great without bothering with the updates. I'm not 100% sure I made the exact same steps but the idea is there.

In Windows Update there is an option that reads something like: "Treat recommended updates the same way as important updates". Did you uncheck that when you uninstalled the Win10 promo update? Because if you don't, Windows will disguise that update as "important" although it's just one of the "recommended" updates. It's what happened to me: I uninstalled the Win 10 promo update, rebooted the PC, was told there are new updates and naively installed them because they were flagged as important, only to see the Win 10 icon reappear. Uninstalling the update another time and unchecking said option before the reboot did it for me.

They're gonna come back with a vengeance, so be ready.

Blimey - never even heard of that before!

Maybe it's because I use Windows so rarely now, but the nag screens appear nearly every single time I boot into Windows :/ Sometimes it'll pop up as soon as I log in, other times it'll wait for me to start doing stuff first.

And it's not just the pop-up nags; it's the constantly having to fight & be on guard against the system itself, with Microsoft's continual pathetic attempts at trying to trick or coerce people into "upgrading" to Win10.

e.g. I have my system set to notify about updates (but not to automatically download & install) and several months ago I noticed it had stopped doing this - I have to open Windows Update manually to see if there are any updates (the "Get Windows 10" thing always shows up though). When I noticed this I mentioned it to my brother (who uses the similar WU settings) and he realised that he hadn't had any update notifications for a while either... so he then checked manually and discovered that there were about 30 "important" updates it hadn't notified him about!

Then there were the times that Microsoft has put the Get Windows 10 nagware into Windows Update itself (even going as far as to make it look very similar to the normal Windows Update dialogue - had to click a link to show the actual system updates).

And then the "mistake" they made that lasted for a couple of weeks, where the "Upgrade to Windows 10" optional update was always selected for install by default (and all other updates deselected), and it would keep coming back even if you tried to hide it.

Also I was told by a friend about how his system had downloaded Windows 10 automatically without his knowledge or consent & had started pestering him to install it :/

etc.

We can only hope so. But with the persistence and desperation that Microsoft is showing in trying to get people to "upgrade" and their future plans with things like advertising, the Windows store, cloud services etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they extend it indefinitely.